Unheard tunes from Poland

Music afficionados were recently treated to a concert by celebrated Polish jazz pianist Artur Dutkiewicz as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of The Bangalore School of Music.

In the programme, the artiste combined classical music, Polish folk music and trance jazz improvisation into one original piece of artistic work.

Artur, in the first part of his concert, presented his own contemporary jazz called mazurkas from his latest album ‘Artur Dutkiewicz Mazurkas’.

These compositions are based on Polish folk music. The tunes are largely influenced by the music of the well-known Polish composer Frederic Chopin, who made the mazurka form popular.

“In my childhood, I took piano lessons in a beautiful old palace. At that time, I was playing Chopin’s mazurkas and that is when I started to improvise and give new renditions of the classics,” the artiste says. In the second part of the concert, the pianist brought in an Indian flavour and played some bhajans like Vitale, Vitale and Giridhar. Apparently the, artiste mastered these numbers years ago while practising yoga in Poland.

Later on, in the concert he invited to the stage vidwan Muthu Kumar, a tabla artiste. Together they performed mazurka oberka, which combined Polish rhythms with traditional Indian rhythms.

He also performed another bhajan, Om Nahmo Bagavate. This was followed by a Jimi Hendrix number Voodoo Child, which Artur had earlier recorded with his group and in his fourth album ‘Hendrix Piano’.

Says the Polish pianist, “For a long time I have been looking for a tabla player with whom I could combine Polish musical tradition and jazz improvisation with the sound of Indian music. I am very happy that after a short rehearsal with Muthu, we have connected perfectly and during the concert we could create and improvise.”

The audience really enjoyed the evening and appreciated the collaboration with a loud applause.